CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Miles slid into a booth near the window, the vinyl cushion creaking under his weight.
Exhaustion sat heavy in his bones and his eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep.
Vic took the seat across from him and Kim settled in beside her, already pulling her laptop bag onto the bench.
Miles thought it might be like second nature to her, as natural as breathing.
A waitress appeared almost immediately, an older woman with gray hair cut short and practical. She poured coffee into their mugs without asking, the steam rising in lazy curls.
"You folks look like you've had a long night," she said.
"You could say that," Vic said. She wrapped both hands around her mug and took a careful sip.
They ordered without looking at the menus. Miles asked for scrambled eggs and toast. Vic wanted pancakes and bacon. Kim went for an omelet with vegetables. The waitress wrote it down and disappeared into the kitchen without further comment.
The diner had the comfortable, lived-in quality of a place that had been serving the same food to the same neighborhood for decades.
Framed photographs lined the walls showing the building at various points in its history.
The booths were worn but clean, and the coffee was strong enough to cut through the fog in Miles's brain.
"Bradford's not our guy," Miles said after a long drink of coffee. "His alibis are going to check out. I can feel it."
"His whole demeanor was wrong," Vic agreed. "Lisa Anderson described someone friendly and approachable. Bradford was hostile and defensive…sort of bitchy.”
“Well, we did wake him up at four in the morning,” Kim pointed out.
She had opened her laptop and was already pulling up databases despite the early hour.
"He made a clear distinction between piloting and passive balloon ascent…
almost like he thought the idea of balloons being used for flight was laughable.
That's not something a guilty person would think to point out. "
Miles rubbed his face with both hands, trying to massage some alertness back into his features. "We need to revise the profile. We've been focusing on criminal behavior, arrests, violations. But what if the trigger isn't criminality? What if it's trauma?"
"Heights-related trauma," Vic said. She set down her coffee mug. "Someone who experienced something terrible involving altitude or falling. Or…somehow, with helium.”
"Exactly," Miles said. "Bradford lost his license and his career, but that was self-inflicted. He blames himself. We're looking for someone who blames the act of defying gravity itself. Someone who had a traumatic experience that makes them unable to experience heights personally."
Kim was already typing, her attention split between the conversation and her laptop screen. "So I'm looking for accidents involving aircraft, balloons, climbing, any height-related incident that resulted in injury or death."
The waitress returned with their food. Plates clattered onto the table and the smell of bacon and eggs filled their small booth.
Miles realized he was hungrier than he'd thought.
He picked up his fork and started eating while Kim continued to work.
They ate in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from muted conversation and the sizzle of food from the kitchen.
"How far back should I search?" Kim asked, taking a bite of her omelet without looking away from her screen.
"Five to ten years," Miles said between bites of scrambled eggs. "Trauma needs time to fester into this kind of obsession. Recent enough to still be fresh, but old enough that the person has had time to develop their delusion."
Vic cut into her pancakes and poured another layer of syrup across the stack.
"And focus on incidents in the Los Angeles area.
The killer knows the city well enough to select launch points and monitor his victims." As she said this, Miles watched as a curious look came across her face. Mies was pretty sure she’d just tumbled upon an idea.
Kim worked through breakfast, occasionally pausing to eat but mostly focused on her search.
Miles watched her navigate between databases with impressive speed, building queries and cross-referencing results faster than anyone he'd worked with.
She had a system that was almost beautiful in its efficiency.
Less than ten minutes after Miles had suggested the revised profile, Kim stopped typing.
"I think I've got him," she said. “Or, at least, a maybe.”
Miles and Vic both leaned forward. Kim turned her laptop so they could see the screen.
"Terry Sullivan, thirty-six years old. He was a hot air balloon operator who survived a catastrophic accident five years ago. His balloon caught fire during descent and two passengers were killed."
“Jesus…let me see that,” Miles said. Kim turned the laptop to face him, and he read through the incident report.
The details were horrific. A propane tank malfunction had caused a fire in the balloon's envelope during what should have been a routine sunset flight.
Sullivan had managed to make an emergency landing, but not before two of his four passengers had jumped from the basket in panic.
They'd fallen from approximately two hundred feet. Both had died.
"That’s awful," Vic said quietly.
"Sullivan suffered severe burns and psychological trauma," Kim continued, taking the laptop back and pulling up additional records.
"He's been undergoing treatment for PTSD since the accident.
He can't go back up in balloons anymore.
According to these records, he says the anxiety he feels over it is too severe. "
"But he still works with balloon equipment?" Miles asked.
"He's been working in balloon equipment sales for the past three years," Kim confirmed. "Which means he has access to weather balloons, helium tanks, and all the materials needed to create the murder method. I’ll run it in the database but that’s…well, that’s a weird search pattern."
Miles felt the profile clicking into place.
A man who had loved balloon flight, who had made it his career, and who had watched people die because they jumped from his balloon in terror.
Someone who couldn't experience flight anymore but was surrounded by the equipment every day.
Someone who might blame the victims for their own deaths, just as the killer blamed Parker, Thompson, and Anderson for their professional defiance of gravity.
"Does he have any connection to the UCLA study?" Vic asked.
Kim checked her databases again. It took a few minutes before she started shaking her head.
"No direct connection that I can find. But if he's working in balloon equipment sales, he might have access to customer lists from adventure tourism companies.
A lot of the study participants would have professional connections to outdoor recreation businesses. "
Miles pulled out his phone to look up Sullivan's current address when it rang in his hand. It was so unexpected that he nearly dropped it right into his plate. The screen showed a number from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
"This is Sterling," he answered, wondering why the hospital might be calling.
"Agent Sterling, this is Dr. Okonkwo. I'm calling about Lisa Anderson."
Miles felt his stomach tighten with worry. "Is she okay?"
"Oh yes, she’s fine. In fact, she's out of surgery and doing quite well, actually. Better than we expected given the severity of her injuries. But she asked me to call you. She's remembered something about last night that she thinks might help locate the killer's launch point."
"Can we speak with her?"
"She's still in recovery but is insisting to talk to you. I'll allow a brief conversation if you think it's urgent."
"Yes, and it is urgent," Miles said. "We'll send someone over within the hour."
He ended the call and looked at Vic and Kim. "Anderson's out of surgery and she's remembered something. We need to talk to her."
"I'll go," Vic said immediately. She had already finished her pancakes and was reaching for her jacket. “Maybe this is where we split up. I’ll go talk to Lisa, and you can speak with this Terry Sullivan character.”
“I may as well go off on my on adventure, too,” Kim said. “It’s after six in the morning now, and I don’t think it’s asking too much of a manager to get access to security footage from the climbing gym where Lisa was attacked," Kim said.
Miles nodded enthusiastically, liking to see this sort of drive and commitment from Kim. And while he wasn’t a huge fan of the entire team splitting up, he knew it was for good reason. They had three solid leads to pursue simultaneously and not a lot of time to get it done.
Kim pulled out her phone and started ordering Ubers. "We only have the one rental car and we're going in three different directions. I'm calling us two rides."
They waited impatiently at their table, drinking the last remnants of the strong coffee. Within just a few minutes, the Uber notifications appeared on Kim's phone. She gathered her laptop and bag while Vic left cash on the table to cover breakfast and a generous tip.
They stepped out into the early morning air as two cars pulled up to the curb.
The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, shifting from black to deep blue.
Miles felt the exhaustion pulling at him, but adrenaline was starting to override it.
They were close now. After hours of dead ends and false leads, they finally had multiple avenues worth pursuing.
It felt like they were ambling along at a decent speed now.
Vic climbed into their original rental car, headed back to the hospital to speak with Anderson. Kim took the first Uber toward Silver Lake and the climbing gym where Anderson had been drugged. Miles pulling up Terry Sullivan's address on his phone as he slid into the back seat of his own car.
A hot air balloon operator who had survived a catastrophic accident...it certainly seemed like it fit the narrative. A man who had watched people die from falling, who couldn't experience flight anymore, who worked every day with the equipment that had once been his passion.
It fit. Everything about it fit. But then again, so had Bradford.
Miles gave the driver Sullivan's address in Pasadena. As the car pulled away from the diner, he looked at the photo Kim had sent to his phone. Terry Sullivan had an average face with no distinguishing features. Sandy hair, medium build, the kind of person who could blend into any crowd.
It was exactly the sort of person Lisa Anderson had described.